Have you tried these? - ftp://ftp.aztech.com/Support/DOWNLOAD/sg/NOV16E/

In my experience Packard Bell oem cards require specific DOS drivers, but Windows 98 detects them. What Windows version are you running?

I am running the OS that would have come with motherboard, which is a PB450. So it utilizes a MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11. What's strange is that I have almost every Packard Bell restoration CD, and I cannot find a driver specifically for the Packard Bell version of this card. I can't even find what the card is called? Looking here I think I found a name but it was PB followed by a bevy of numbers. Looking through all of my ISO images, I cannot find any driver that matches it at all. This machine is pretty low end to run Windows 95. I was hoping to keep it pretty close to what it would have been back in the day.

The Packard Bell P/N is probably on the back of the card and starts with a 6. Not that that's going to help you with an old beast like this. In any event, it is the MMSN811 (which goes by many marketing names), with its 2nd gen Aztech AZT1605-U05 chipset.

As for DOS drivers: you don't need any, it's hardware SB2.0 compatible. All you need is the config tool to set IRQ & DMA (as base address is set by jumper, currently 0x220 looking at your pic). In fact, you might not even need that - you can find current settings by trial and error, and if they're remotely acceptable, just use as they are now.

dionb wrote on 2020-08-03, 22:33:

As for DOS drivers: you don't need any, it's hardware SB2.0 compatible. All you need is the config tool to set IRQ & DMA (as base address is set by jumper, currently 0x220 looking at your pic). In fact, you might not even need that - you can find current settings by trial and error, and if they're remotely acceptable, just use as they are now.

Except that it doesn't work in DOS for me. Hence the reason I need to figure out a way to get the proper drivers installed. The AUTOEXEC.BAT file has the SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 and some other stuff I cannot remember off the top of my head along with a SET GALAXY listing as well with additional resources. The card works in Windows 3.11 because of the Voyetra SuperSapiFM OPL driver and the Windows Sound System 16-Bit Audio driver, which appears to work across multiples of their WSS compatible cards. But DOS will not work for me at this time. So I know the card is not dead, I just can't use it in DOS. I have a Reveal SC400 Rev. 3 which, from what I have been able to find is the same card. However, the Aztech driver CD that I got from here doesn't work with it either. It says that the hardware is not found. It seems really strange that the only drivers for the Nova 16 Extra install from Windows. So I'm kind of stuck at square one. The only other ISA Sound Card I have that isn't a Windows 95 or later card that I currently don't have installed in a machine is a Jazz 16 SCSI card. And I haven't even tried to find drivers for that. I was just hoping that the Packard Bell Sound could be used in the Packard Bell machine.

Did you check the windows drivers by chance for any DOS files in it too? I know a few of the Aztech drivers uploaded here specifically needed windows to unpack the DOS stuff (ugh..).

Any jumpers on the card for EEPROM? Some Aztech cards can be configured both in software. Or from settings saved to the card itself on a previous configuration tool run.

Try different IRQS like 7. Its possible it was pre set to that sometime previously.

Card is a "NOV16E Sound Galaxy Nova 16 Extra Card Updates - FCC-ID:I38-MMSN811" according to picture and ftp://ftp.aztech.com/SUPPORT/DOWNLOAD/sg/index.txt

Drivers are here : ftp://ftp.aztech.com/SUPPORT/DOWNLOAD/sg/NOV16E/

All DOS drivers you need will be installed if you install NOV16E-1 ZIP , NOV16E-2 ZIP and NOV16E-3 ZIP under Windows 3.1 or higher (I suggest you use a VM).

AFAIK, DOS drivers will be found in C:\NOVA16E\UTILITY .

how good are these compared to SB16 ? i noticed they come with a yamaha chip

Yes many included Yamaha OPL chip but technically they are SB Pr0 clones. Yes listen to Darry ! seriously there were so many variant of the Aztech cards it is near impossible to keep track of all of them. Most used a util to program the IRQ and Port if set to software mode, or if set to eeprom you could use other jumpers to set Port address. But all that is card specific. Hate Aztech cards for that but when configured proper do work very well (Crystal 423x based are ok). I have one (SC400 variant) and both love it and hate it 😀

nathanieltolbert wrote on 2020-08-04, 00:54:

dionb wrote on 2020-08-03, 22:33:

As for DOS drivers: you don't need any, it's hardware SB2.0 compatible. All you need is the config tool to set IRQ & DMA (as base address is set by jumper, currently 0x220 looking at your pic). In fact, you might not even need that - you can find current settings by trial and error, and if they're remotely acceptable, just use as they are now.

Except that it doesn't work in DOS for me.

How did you confirm that?

Again, this card doesn't need drivers or initialization, and SET BLASTER doesn't set the card, it tells software that uses that variable where to find it, that's all. So just take software where you can specify IRQ and DMA yourself and try combinations one by one to discover current settings.

Concretly: take a game that lets you choose settings yourself (I tend to use Sid Meier's Colonization, but there are hundreds of other options), set address to 220, then try the other two sequentially:
I5 D1
I7 D1
I3 D1
I5 D0
I7 D0
I3 D0
I5 D3
I7 D3
I3 D3
If you guess wrong, at worst the system will hang because of IRQ/DMA conflict. No problem, just reboot and try the next one. One of these should work. Once you find it, alter SET BLASTER to that value and you should be good to go. Finding the DOS config tool would be a nice bonus, but not essential to operation.

dionb wrote on 2020-08-04, 06:27:

How did you confirm that? […]
Show full quote

How did you confirm that?

Again, this card doesn't need drivers or initialization, and SET BLASTER doesn't set the card, it tells software that uses that variable where to find it, that's all. So just take software where you can specify IRQ and DMA yourself and try combinations one by one to discover current settings.

Concretly: take a game that lets you choose settings yourself (I tend to use Sid Meier's Colonization, but there are hundreds of other options), set address to 220, then try the other two sequentially:
I5 D1
I7 D1
I3 D1
I5 D0
I7 D0
I3 D0
I5 D3
I7 D3
I3 D3
If you guess wrong, at worst the system will hang because of IRQ/DMA conflict. No problem, just reboot and try the next one. One of these should work. Once you find it, alter SET BLASTER to that value and you should be good to go. Finding the DOS config tool would be a nice bonus, but not essential to operation.

I tried exactly what you you suggested with different IRQ and DMA settings. I did it with Return to Zork, which I had sitting nearby. Game would lock up every time. I did make some progress on what Packard Bell called these cards though. The Forte 16 SBPA. I removed the Sound16A drivers and folders that were installed with the Packard Bell Recovery CD, and installed the Forte 16 software. Here's something interesting. When I set the jumper to EEPROM, when trying to check the card, it says Sound Hardware not found. But if I set it to Software controlled, then I can get in and configure settings. So I set the soundcard settings for WSS 530H, IRQ 7, DMA 0 and Sound Blaster settings are 220H, IRQ 5, DMA 1. I can run the tests. FM works, 8 bit VOC test works, 16 bit sound test hangs. I don't have a midi device hooked up to test the midi in and midi out. Next interesting thing. Once the Forte 16 SBPA drivers were installed. In Windows I no longer get that horrendous tone that is generated from the CD-Audio volume on the Mixer. Sound works fine in Windows. I save all of the settings to EEPROM and update the AUTOEXEC.BAT. Shut the machine down, move the jumper back to EEPROM. Boot the machine, and it can't find the Sound Hardware. So I went to bed. This morning I get up and I put the jumper back on Software. Configured the card, again. Saved settings to EEPROM and updated the AUTOEXEC.BAT again, and rebooted the machine as it dictated. Configure sound settings in Return to Zork for Sound Blaster with 220H I5 D1 and Sound Blaster Pro for music, since I have heard this card has issues with running in Sound Blaster Pro mode with some software. Game boots, no error messages. But no digital sound, but the midi works! So progress there. Tried again with setting the sound card settings to Sound Blaster Pro and the game hangs.

It just seems extremely weird that when I set the card to run from the EEPROM that the card seems to just shut down. I am guessing that for whatever reason the updates to the configuration on the EEPROM aren't being updated when I finish making them, which results in the AUTOEXEC.BAT settings not lining up with the card resulting in it not working. I can hear the pop at boot up from the speakers, so I know the card is immediately grabbing the resources it demands like other Aztech cards but everything above is as far as I have gotten. So yay, progress! I will test some different games and make sure it's not an incompatibility with Return to Zork and relay more information when I have it.

Update. I'm a stupid idiot. While trying to diagnose the issue with digital sound, I was looking through all of the different utilities in the folder. I loaded up mixerset and lo and behold! The VOC was set to 0. SMDH. So the whole reason I wasn't getting any sound effects in Return to Zork? The volume was set to zero. Moved it up set it to 12 like the other volumes and saved to EEPROM. Now I get sound effects in DOS. Confirmed in two Sierra games, Space Quest 1 VGA, and Police Quest III. I will continue testing with different software and check the compatibility rate. I'm a little mad at myself that the reason I wasn't getting any digitized sounds was because of the mixer. That should have been the first thing I checked after confirming the 8 bit test worked. But yes, the Sound Card appears to be fully working now. So the I38-MMSN811 when it is the Packard Bell Card is the Forte 16 SBPA, and I have the specific Disk images for the software for it in the event that others need it.

nathanieltolbert wrote on 2020-08-04, 15:33:

Update. I'm a stupid idiot. While trying to diagnose the issue with digital sound, I was looking through all of the different utilities in the folder. I loaded up mixerset and lo and behold! The VOC was set to 0. SMDH. So the whole reason I wasn't getting any sound effects in Return to Zork? The volume was set to zero. Moved it up set it to 12 like the other volumes and saved to EEPROM. Now I get sound effects in DOS. Confirmed in two Sierra games, Space Quest 1 VGA, and Police Quest III. I will continue testing with different software and check the compatibility rate. I'm a little mad at myself that the reason I wasn't getting any digitized sounds was because of the mixer. That should have been the first thing I checked after confirming the 8 bit test worked. But yes, the Sound Card appears to be fully working now. So the I38-MMSN811 when it is the Packard Bell Card is the Forte 16 SBPA, and I have the specific Disk images for the software for it in the event that others need it.

Sorry for the bump, but I purchased almost the same card, it’s just not the nova 16 extra, just the nova 16, but still a sb 2.0 clone. I was just curious which of the suggested software downloads you used in the end and if the mixer software came with it?

The software mixer does work with the nova16. There is a different driver set used for the straight nova16 but the vogons drivers section has them. What you will want to do is download the aztech drivers archived, find the nova16 folder, and then open the readme. From there you will want to match the I38-mmsnXXX to your card and then write those disk files to floppies. Then install from them. Some cards will install from a folder on the hard drive but most require you to install from floppies otherwise they fail.

nathanieltolbert wrote on 2023-07-21, 00:00:

The software mixer does work with the nova16. There is a different driver set used for the straight nova16 but the vogons drivers section has them. What you will want to do is download the aztech drivers archived, find the nova16 folder, and then open the readme. From there you will want to match the I38-mmsnXXX to your card and then write those disk files to floppies. Then install from them. Some cards will install from a folder on the hard drive but most require you to install from floppies otherwise they fail.

Thanks for the reply! Perfect.